How to shoot portrait sports on a monopod...without a tripod ring!

bandgeekndb

Grr, the minor aggravations that try to keep me from enjoying my photography!

I'm trying to shoot a daytime game and I've got a monopod for my D40 and a 55-200 VR lens. I want the stability of the monopod because I haven't quite mastered a truly steady hold on the camera yet and my long end of the zoom is getting a bit fuzzy (completely ignoring the slow focus of the D40).

Any suggestions? I might just have to go handheld and not breathe the whole game to keep the shots steady, but when I pass out, the memory card will have some good pictures!

Thanks everybody!

~Nick

du8die

Knowing nothing about your particular lens, could you just get a tripod ring for that lens? Like I said, I'm a Canon guy, so I don't know if your lens even can have a tripod ring.

Aside from that, I'd say go down to the local hardware store, find a piece of angle iron, or a 90 degree angle bracket of some kind, with two holes in it. Then find a nut that will fit on to your mono pod. Screw the angle bracket to the monopod, and then find a bolt that will fit into the tripod mount on your camera, attach and secure, and voila, a home-built monopod adapter...

EarthDog

Another option
At the opposite end of the price spectrum, if you want to/ can afford to go a little upscale, you could get an L-bracket, a quick-release plate (or two), and a quick-release ballhead to go with them. Most monopods will let you mount a ballhead on them, and the L-bracket gives you an easy way of switching between portrait and landscape orientation without having to adjust the height too much.

You could just use the ballhead, since they allow "flopping" the camera over, but you lose a lot of the stability you're lugging the monopod around for in the first place, that way. The off-center weight makes it much harder to stabilize.

jonh68

If you are shooting in the daytime and with good light, there is no reason to use a monopod. You should be getting at least 1/1000 ss which is plenty to freeze any action and camera shake. The only drawback to using a D40 for portrait mode is it doesn't have a vertical grip which makes shooting portrait awkward. If shooting portrait is that awkward for you, just shoot tighter and crop vertical.

You may find geting a heavier lens may actually help handholding.

KED

bandgeekndb wrote:

I'm trying to shoot a daytime game and I've got a monopod for my D40 and a 55-200 VR lens. I want the stability of the monopod because I haven't quite mastered a truly steady hold on the camera yet and my long end of the zoom is getting a bit fuzzy (completely ignoring the slow focus of the D40).
~Nick

I'm a Canon guy but I know enough to know that VR is the same as Canon's IS (image stabilization), and as jonh68 said, in daylight you should have ample shutter speed, so my guess would be that your issue is in fact the "slow focus of the D40" (your words not mine, I don't know what that means specifically) -- hence I wouldn't waste a dime on upgrading monopod or tripod gear, instead if I were you I'd save my pennies and upgrade the camera at some point. I don't know how the 55-200 VR compares to the Canon 70-200 IS (the latter weights 51.5 oz), but most people hand hold that lens with no problems, which again points to slow AF as your real problem.

I've also become convinced, somewhat contrary to EarthDog's recommendation, that a ballhead on a monopod is massive overkill and therefore a waste of $. You might want to check out the Really Right Stuff MH-1 monopod head -- very nifty IMO.

donek

The D40 and 55-200 is probably the lightest setup you could use. A monopod is usually used for supporting a lens/body that is heavy. With adequate ss you should be fine handheld. If you're having trouble with out of focus shots you might want to try making some settings changes.

As long as you are getting a shutter speed of 1/1000, turn off the VR on the lens. VR will slow down the focus on the lens.

Set your focus to AF-C (continuous servo AF)

Use dynamic Area for your focus area selection.

Shoot in Aperture priority with the lowest possible f number/ largest aperture.

Shoot ISO 400 to 800 ensuring the shutter speed is above 1/1000.

KD5NRH

du8die wrote:

Aside from that, I'd say go down to the local hardware store, find a piece of angle iron, or a 90 degree angle bracket of some kind, with two holes in it. Then find a nut that will fit on to your mono pod. Screw the angle bracket to the monopod, and then find a bolt that will fit into the tripod mount on your camera, attach and secure, and voila, a home-built monopod adapter...

The thread you're looking for is 1/4x20. For the cleanest option, get a piece of angle big enough to hold the camera centered and two quick-release plates. Drill and tap two 1/4x20 holes, one in each arm, and a third hole beside one of those to pass a 1/4x20 bolt for mounting the camera. Attach a quick release to each of the tapped holes and mount the camera with a bolt; then you can change from portrait to landscape by switching which bracket is attached to the monopod.

Be careful about the bolt length, though; most cameras specify a maximum depth the tripod mount screw can go into the body without damaging the socket or worse.

torags

Ditto on shutter speed. I wouldn't go to iso 800 on that cam, matter of fact I wouldn't go 400. In daylight ss 1000 (try 800 first) should be more than enough.

I'm not familiar with the 55/200 does it have VR? Shut it off as others have suggested.

If it has variable aperture, then aperture priority may not do you any good, stick with shutter priority.

Good luck

Rags

bandgeekndb

Thank you to everyone! As some here have said, I found the monopod totally killing my ability to get decent shots. I didn't have the flexibility to move (maybe just because I wasn't used to it yet) and I found myself missing shots. From now on, I'm going handheld.

Thanks for the setting suggestions as well, I'll try them this Sunday when I shoot again! This might sound wrong as anything, since I just tried what I thought looked best, but I ended up shooting Program mode, making sure the shutter speed never dropped below 1/500.

My main problem is one of 2 things. One, I'm getting shadows, because the lighting is coming in at an angle and I have no fill light. The second thing is some of the shots are out of focus. I can hear the camera trying to focus with me as I move the camera with the subject. What ends up happening is the wrong part of the picture will be in focus. Hopefully, once I try these settings you've suggested, I'll be getting better shots!

Thanks for all the help!
~Nick

johng

Nick,

On shadows: yep, it happens. The key is to not let the camera control the metering. If you aren't comfortable shooting in manual exposure then shoot aperture priority and use Exposure Compensation (EC) to adjust the exposure so that faces are no longer in shadow. You may find this blows highlights in the sky or uniforms but those don't matter. What matters is faces - that's what people care about.

Focus - well, there are a number of possible causes. First, the most likely cause is you aren't framing tightly in-camera. When shooting portrait orientation you want to make sure your subject fills at least 2/3 of the camera's vertical frame. A very common mistake made by people new to action photography is to frame loosely thinking they can always crop down in post processing. In practice that doesn't work very well. The major reason being accurate focus.
Part 2 - use only a single focus point.
Part 3 - keep that focus point on an area of contrast on the player - keeping it on a completely white part of the jersey won't work well. You want an area of contrast - letters/number or face.
Part 4 - give your camera/lens a chance by focusing on the player in question for a second, while tracking the subject before you take the shot.

EarthDog

KED wrote:

I've also become convinced, somewhat contrary to EarthDog's recommendation, that a ballhead on a monopod is massive overkill and therefore a waste of $.

I don't disagree with that, at all. I wasn't recommending anything; just pointing out an option that hadn't been mentioned.

And, it isn't necessary (or nice) to call people out by name, like this. Just state your opinion. People will figure out that you disagree with what you think they said, if they care.

You might want to check out the Really Right Stuff MH-1 monopod head -- very nifty IMO.

I wasn't familiar with the MH-01 head (note the difference... the search won't find MH-1), so I couldn't mention it. It still strikes me as overkill. All you really need is a way to put a quick release on the 'pod, but I don't know of a way.